The Minister of Digital Transformation describes the law as “one of the most important milestones of the digital era” that will regulate “the technology that is changing the world”
The Minister of Digital Transformation, José Luis Escrivá, assured this Wednesday that what he considered as “one of the most important milestones of the digital age“, which will be the first law that will regulate “the technology that is changing the world“the artificial intelligence (AI).
“Spain, during its Presidency, is close to reaching an agreement with all parties and closing the negotiations so that the Artificial Intelligence Law becomes a reality,” he stated at the inauguration in Malaga of the Google Security Engineering Center (GSEC, for its acronym in English).
He added that in the field of cybersecurity it is necessary to have trained people and the Government is promoting this with programs to increase cybersecurity skills and cover an employment demand that is estimated to exceed 80,000 jobs in 2024.
He has defended that the main challenge for public administrations and companies is to identify, attract, develop and retain talent in the different fields of cybersecurity.
Escrivá highlighted that in Spain investments were made in the last two years in this area more than 500 million euros of European funds and there is already a mature sector, made up of more than 1,600 companies, with double-digit growth forecasts.
He highlighted that the digital transformation agenda has always had the highest priority in the Government of Pedro Sanchez and since last week, a ministry of its own is the clearest demonstration of this.
However, he specified that there was no strategic plan to support the digitalization of SMEs and that there was a lack of specific public policies on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and other disruptive technologies.
For Escrivá, it is It is essential to reinforce the cybersecurity of public administrations and for this purpose, the Cybersecurity Operations Center was created for the advanced protection of all public administrations in the country, which already guarantees the protection of more than 77,000 computers.
The minister added that the information and communications sector is the one with the greatest growth in terms of employment since the pandemic, with an increase of more than 25%.
He stressed that Málaga has managed to create a successful public-private collaboration ecosystem and has become a true technological node, that Google’s new project will help expand it even further, and that the future of cybersecurity is in Málaga.